For a deeper look, there is this Wall Street Journal piece, posted in July, that essentially introduced Lynch to a national audience. “Tough” and “fair” and “low-key” were again the buzzwords — along with stories of personal success. When she scored high on a standardized test in her mostly white school, she said, she was told by administrators that she had to retake it. She did, and got an even higher score the second time around. Later, after she was nominated for the Attorney General position, her North Carolina roots were the emphasis of a great many news articles. This one, from the Charlotte Observer, noted that Lynch “rode on her father’s shoulders to church” on Sundays.

Race, of course, is central to Lynch’s story. Not just in her background and history, but also in her future at the Justice Department in an age marked both by civilian and police protests over racial disparities in criminal justice. But that doesn’t mean she necessarily wants it that way. This Politico piece late last year pressed the point that Lynch’s record on civil rights, and her public statements on racial justice in general, have been muted. In December, The New York Times looked closely at her past comments on race. An excerpt:

In her remarks at Cardozo in 2001, Ms. Lynch spoke of lingering racism in the criminal justice system. She told a story about a white Long Island juror who was shocked to see white defendants in a drug trial. “When I think of criminals, I don’t think of white people,” Ms. Lynch recalled the juror saying. “I think of black people or Hispanic people.”

Finally, you can read here what she said to the Senate Judiciary Committee in her own defense. You can watch online video of her testimony here, and soon you can pore over the transcript of the question-and-answer session of her confirmation hearing.